AI will help cybersecurity experts more than criminals, senior UAE official says

Cybersecurity council chief Mohamed Al Kuwaiti says 100 per cent security is within reach

Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, head of the UAE Cybersecurity Council. Antonie Robertson / The National

Five years from now, artificial intelligence will help those in the cybersecurity community more than it will assist criminals, the head of the UAE's Cybersecurity Council said on Wednesday.

Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti said that in the months and years ahead, AI will enable the cybersecurity sector to be far less reactive and more proactive, if used properly.

"Early warning systems will allow us to actually detect [cyber] attacks before they happen, that's where I have great hope in AI," he told the audience in Washington during the Billington Cybersecurity Summit in Washington.

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His comments come amid headlines and reports warning that in the near term, AI and high-performance semiconductors will lower the knowledge threshold for those seeking to commit cyber crimes.

Yet the cybersecurity sector and AI have been areas of significant focus for the UAE as it seeks to diversify its economy away from oil.

Dr Al Kuwaiti said that the UAE is already using AI tools to guard against hacks and other attempts to compromise tech infrastructure, and he is happy with what he has seen so far.

He said that partnerships with technology companies have also proved helpful in the race to make sure AI's uses for good outweigh the bad.

Mohamed Al Kuwaiti said the UAE was already using AI, along with partnerships with private technology companies to mitigate the effects of cyber attacks.

"An alert [of a cyber attack] came to us from a partner, not even from a government," he said, recalling a "zero-day attack" that was stopped before any damage could occur.

Zero-day attacks try to take advantage of a hardware or software vulnerability that has not been largely identified or fixed.

"The first call we got was from a partner, and that's where the fruit of having good partnerships in technology comes into play," he said.

Dr Al Kuwaiti said that if designed and implemented correctly, AI could make cyber attacks a thing of the past.

"There is 100 per cent security if you really design it in the right way ... and you apply the right AI."

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The 2024 Global Cybersecurity Index gave the UAE the highest tier one rating, reserved for countries viewed as role models in the cybersecurity sector.

In April, the UAE also announced the creation of a Cyber Security Centre of Excellence, with support from Google.

At the same time, however, increasing geopolitical tension in the Middle East makes the region ripe for an increase in cyber attacks.

The 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June and heightened tension between India and Pakistan led to "unprecedented" distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the first half of this year, a recent report found.

In Saudi Arabia alone, 270,179 DDoS attack attempts were recorded in the first half of 2025, according to NetScout Systems, a cyber protection solutions provider. But the UAE had only 3,477 attempted DDoS attacks.

Another analysis released this year warned that Middle East governments' push to digitise critical infrastructure and citizen services, along with the effects of continuing tension, meant that cyber crime in the region would be likely to “increase in scale and complexity”.

Nonetheless, the UAE has been optimistic that its early interest in technology, cyber security and most recently AI will help the country to stay one step ahead.

In April, Dr Al Kuwaiti said that the UAE was poised to be a "net exporter of cybersecurity talent".

"Our main focus is cyber crime, cyber terrorism and cyber warfare," he told The National during an earlier visit to Washington, insisting the battle for cyber security will necessitate an all-hands-on-deck approach.

"Our goal is to empower every individual – from CEOs to students – to understand their role in safeguarding the digital space."